


Crepusculent

by gigiree



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Baby, F/M, butterfly bog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4889020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because biology is not always kind to halflings and old wives' tales are not just hearsay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crepusculent

_Should dark meet light, the light will steal all worth.’_

It’s an old wives’ tale. It’s something whispered in sewing circles when decrepit goblinesses long past their prime sit and gossip and knit moss blankets for grandchildren yet to come. It’s simply another barrier, another wall of words placed syllable by syllable to isolate the forest from the fields.

You know this by now. You’ve heard it countless times before, brushed it off as hearsay because you never thought it would even have a farthing’s chance of applying to you. Because you are dark. You are the Bog King, ruler of a forest with murky waters and nightly beauties. The blue of your eyes, strange and bright, is as close as you would ever want to be to the wide open skies.

You never expected this. Never expected to fall for shifting iridescence, beating violet and molten amber. A fairy, a princess, a person from the Light. 

So you hear them whisper. But it’s hearsay and when Marianne laughs so warmly and lovingly and softly, you push the niggling doubts and the angered affront away. Marianne laughs and so do you when she tells you that the Light Fields have a similar saying.

 _“Light is light and dark is dark, so don’t go looking for something you can’t see,”s_ he sings _._

Worry is for the old and hope is for the young, and as scarred and jaded as you are, you’ve still got something burning in you. So you dip your head and bite back the ever present fear of being pushed back because she cradles your cheeks, caresses edges and catches that she should (by every old wives’ tale) find repulsive.

But you swallow her laughter in a kiss as sweet as dappled sun through misty mornings, as golden as honey and just as delicate.

 _‘What nonsense,’_ You think to yourself, because light and dark have met and they are all the better for it.

* * *

You should have listened. You should have listened and stopped yourself before it got to this point. You’re to blame.  _You._

Because old goblinesses have some sense after all and they haven’t been so long lived for nothing. Your mother however is not counted in the number. Like you, she had thought it all hearsay. Like you, she wanted nothing more than a never fading happiness,your happiness and that of an almost-daughter so dear to her. But your mother was wrong. You were wrong. Marianne was wrong.

And you feel it well up, burning and clawing up your throat until you can’t breathe and you can’t bring yourself to go back in there. Behind heavy wooden doors, into a room with orange hues and dying sun shimmering through silvery webs. You can’t go into a room with a weary Marianne, a  _very_  bittersweet arrival, and a mother with a grin too wide to be real.

Your daughter wails and so does her mother. You can picture your wife, regal and broken and every bit as beautiful as ever drenched in sweat and cradling a halfling to her ever so lovingly. But she cries and you do too, because Light and Dark had come together and taken away something precious.

There’s a reason goblins and fairies don’t come together like you have. There’s a reason for this guilt and there’s a reason you can’t bear to go into that room.

It’s your fault that your lovely daughter, your joy, your expectation, your love, is perfect in every way except for one.

It’s not her hair. That’s dark and lovely and coarse. 

It’s not her skin. That’s smooth and speckled with silvery bits of chitin.

It’s not even her face, delicate and small.

It’s her eyes. Wide and awake and such a wonderful dusky purple that you can’t help but delight in the velvety shades that spark behind her tears.

It’s her eyes, thick lashed and beautiful and sightless.

And it’s all your fault.

You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve to even walk the same hallowed ground she will one day stroll. You’ve taken away her sunrises before she even knows what they are.

“Bog.”

Marianne’s calling you. And you know you won’t be able to look her in the face after this. You’ve doomed your child to a sightless future, and in a world where light and shade are one half the experience, that’s a terrible way to start.

“Bog.”

She’s calling you again. And you go because as much as you blame yourself, you are selfish and your family is all you have to treasure and they are yours and you want them. For all you have done, for all you’ve caused, you want to keep them.

Blindly, you step forward. You feel your spine curling, the remnants of an expectant smile still linger at the corners of your mouth because you want to be strong for the both of them.

Your briefly feel a pat on your arm, small gray fingers that belong to your mother are meant to comfort, but it’s fruitless.

“ _Marianne_ … _Marianne…I’m sorry. I’m so sor-”_

The words catch in your throat, balling up to cork up your useless apologies because Marianne is looking at you with a gaze so fierce. She’s angry, she has every right to be.

But her eyes have darkened until they are the rich earthy color of fallen leaves after rain. She’s cradling the bairn towards her, motherly and protective in a way that makes your aching heart flutter. 

“Come here.”

“I can’t touch ‘er.”

Marianne’s gaze softens, and the tears prick at the edges of yours and you squint to make sure nothing falls, because you don’t even deserve to grieve.

“Come. Come hold her Bog.”

Instantly, you back away and your plates rattle and slide past each other and your claws look awfully sharp in this dim lighting. You’ve already made your daughter blind, adding even one more scratch would be unbearable.

“I…I should have listened, Marianne. We…She…”

“She’s perfect!” Marianne finishes, and there’s a determination and ire there that makes you want to leave right away. But before you can even take a step, your mother, the traitor is behind you, and she pushes you towards the bed with all the force in her tiny grip.

“Coward. My son is a coward.”

And yes you are. But you are a selfish coward who gives in to the love beating deep within you, blooming bright into colors unseen because the lovely creature who mewls and whimpers against her mother’s breast is half yours and your all hers.

You know it for sure when her sightless dusky eyes search round the room and her tiny, tiny fingers grip one of yours, claiming you for all the future sunrises to come.

“Aye. She’s perfect.”

And there will be future days where she will come crying to you, searching, patting and looking with touch because someone said she was useless.

There will be days when you can’t bear to look at your father-in-law because you will see the blame in his eyes as he lifts his grand-daughter higher and higher up until the sun catches her transparent wings.

There will be days where she is frustrated and then she will reach for a sword she can’t see, but can wield and parry and thrust. On those days, you will teach her how to fight and you will clear your throat because your pride is so great, your chest will fill to near bursting.

And best of all, there will be days where she smiles and thanks you for everything, and then she will take your amber staff in hand and be loved for The Blind Queen she is, a name as proudly uttered and as wonderfully respected as yours ever was.

There will be all of these kinds of days, but for now you look out the window and the sun is setting and the sky is dusky, with stars just beginning to wink into existence.

Because Light and Dark took away sight, but brought with them a melancholy sunset more sweet than guilt or blame can sour. 


End file.
